Cancer surgeons save woman’s face with Star Trek-style 3D scan

Surgeons have used 3D technology to help rebuild a woman’s face after a life-threatening tumour was removed.

Ann O’Sullivan, 69, said it was a “bolt out of the blue” when she was told she had bone cancer and a tumour behind her left eye after going to her GP with sinus problems in May.

After assessments at Queen Mary’s in Roehampton and Kingston hospital, she was transferred to St George’s Hospital in Tooting where she had the first of two pioneering 10-hour operations on June 17.

Consultant maxillo-facial surgeons Kavin Andi and Graham Smith used 3D computer images from Mrs O’Sullivan’s CT scan to ensure they removed only the diseased area. They removed her left eye and half of her jawbone before rebuilding her face with the aid of skin grafts and taking the fibula from her left leg to reconstruct her jawbone.

“I’m completely amazed,” said Mrs O’Sullivan, a retired school secretary from Roehampton, who has two daughters and three grandchildren.

“I didn’t think that it would be in such good shape as it is. My grandchildren thought there would be a great big hole. After the operation, it took me about a week to look in the mirror. When I did, I said to myself, ‘What are you making a fuss about, Ann?’ It’s not as bad as I thought. It’s an absolute miracle. I can’t praise them enough.”

The 3D technology has been used on about 30 patients at St George’s in the last eight months but Mrs O’Sullivan is the first to speak publicly about the procedure. Surgeons predicted they were “two to three years” from such operations being carried out using robots guided by surgeons wearing 3D glasses. “It will be very Star Trek-esque,” said Mr Andi.

He said the use of the 3D graphics cut the length of Mrs O’Sullivan’s operations by two hours. “It helps to find the best scenario without wielding a knife to Ann,” he said. “With a lot of tumours, you can’t physically see the edge. We are talking about microscopic structures.”

Mrs O’Sullivan is undergoing radiotherapy and chemotherapy at the Royal Marsden in Sutton. Further reconstruction work, possibly including fitting a prosthetic eye, may follow.